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We can only assume this was all a negotiation tactic, where they start with an unreasonable position, and force devs to accept an imbalanced (but manageable) fee structure they would have rejected.
I say that, but I also assumed that is what Reddit was doing, but they went full steam towards stupid town, so ymmv.
Reddit just wanted to kill third party apps to serve more of their own ads, since third party apps could natively include an adblocker.
Unity benefits massively from the fact that it's the default choice for indie game development. Even if they keep the majority of their devs, if they drive enough away to lose that default status then they're fucked.
"were seriously wondering if we can trust unity moving forward"
You can't. If you have to wonder you can't. Unity cooked their goose and showed that they are not your friends and will take every opportunity to fuck you over.
Just your daily reminder that open source alternatives exist, most notably Godot. Free of worries about any fees, let's support and build ourselves a better future.
Depending on the complexity of your game or project, it may be very expensive to switch engines.
I know, it's not a perfect solution for everyone. Maybe not this game, not the next, but somewhere down the road we can all meet on the Godot forum. I am just a hobbyist gamedev, so there's no pressure on me and I can switch on a whim, and there's many people of the same sort. The more join the forces, the better the engine will get and more professional studios will join in. The circle keeps on circling.
Staying on unity might also be very expensive depending on how all this resolves. Switching might be a cheaper option and worth at least looking at.
Unlikely. Switching can take months to years to do, its just unrealistic to switch engines for a game already deep in production. Its an option to switch engines when you are working on a new title but having to rebuild the foundations of your game all over again is probably not worth it, when the time you are wasting doing that can just be invested on working a new project.